Coordinating Diversity
The Chinese New Year festivities in Honolulu come to life after months of planning among several organizations.
By T.J. Griffin
IN HAWAI‘I, THERE ARE TWO NEW YEARS—the set Gregorian date of Jan. 1 and this year’s Chinese date of Feb. 14. This Chinese New Year, often called the Lunar New Year, is one of the most important and iconic traditional Chinese holidays—though it still influences celebrations in cities and neighborhoods throughout the world, including one of the oldest U.S. Chinatowns found in the heart of Honolulu.
The Chinese New Year festivities in Honolulu come to life after months of planning among several organizations, perhaps the most influential of which are the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Honolulu and the city and county of Honolulu.
“The main hurdles in throwing such an event are coordinating a diverse group of Chinese organizations that are co-sponsors along with the city and county of Honolulu,” said Dennis Hwang, president of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Honolulu. “There are logistical problems with regard to the closing of streets, diverting traffic and security for the thousands of people on the streets.”
Since 2006, the city and county of Honolulu have partnered with Chinatown leaders to make the New Year celebrations a reality. As Alenka Remec, a small business advocate with the mayor’s office, explains, the coordination of various organizations and the logistics of the festivities are not without hurdles in coordinating an effective and successful New Year celebration.
“Before Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann’s administration, the various Chinese groups putting on the events each had their own schedules and marketing efforts, which led to confusion among celebration-goers,” Remec said. “There wasn’t a good way of knowing ahead of time when events would be happening.”
According to Remec, the partnership between the city and local Chinese organizations began in 2006 when a group of University of Hawai’i students decided to focus their marketing project on the Chinese New Year events. As part of their MBA Consulting Practicum final, four students proposed a group marketing effort—promoting all of the events together. To unify the events, a partnership formed between The Honolulu Star-Bulletin and the students to handle advertising and marketing, and an event schedule was prepared well ahead of time. Evan Leong was one of those students and still volunteers with New Year celebrations each year. As he explains, this new effort was not only a first for the students, but for the numerous Chinese organizations, too.
“My friend suggested we get involved in the Mayor of Honolulu’s vision team for Chinatown. About 100 hours or so into our project the new mayor cancelled all of his predecessor’s vision teams, and we were forced to find a solution,” Leong said. “The Chinese Chamber of Commerce asked if we could help get the Chinese organizations together to cooperate and do joint marketing since there were multiple events and organizations involved. Our first meeting was the first time that leadership from the different organizations all sat at the same table.”
Before the university students got involved, Honolulu’s Chinese New Year was not an orchestrated event. Instead, the events took place over several weekends, and some years the festivities spanned two months, with each organization requesting resources from the city such as uniformed police officers and street closures.
“What were once separate efforts with a lack of communication is now planned in unison and with great cooperation,” Leong explained. “The city only needs to coordinate for one weekend instead of multiple weekends, and the organizations benefit from increased marketing and cooperation. It’s now a month worth of events and has brought together representatives of the community that would not otherwise come together.”
With so many organizations promoting their New Year events on different weekends, confusion with traffic and street closures increasingly became an issue. With a unified New Year event, street congestion and closures slowly became less of an issue due to more planning and coordination with city leaders and Chinatown.
“Working closely with the police department and all of the volunteers and annual debriefing meetings to discuss the good and not so good resulted in getting more crowd control barricades as well as creating more opportunities for cross traffic to go through,” Remec said.
Whether visitors attend the various celebrations or enjoy a bite of traditional Asian cuisine at the Chinatown Open house, Remec and Hwang hope those taking part will have learned something of Chinese culture to take back home.
“Attending these events is a great way to learn the Chinese culture in one of the oldest Chinatowns in the U.S.,” Hwang said. “It is a great way to mix with all the local people who will be attending the events.” One+
T.J. GRIFFIN is a Dallas-based freelance writer.
What’s New in Hawai’i
• Those looking for a taste of farm-to-table cuisine can head over to the new Kai Market located at the Sheraton Waikiki. Overlooking O‘ahu’s popular Waikïki Beach and the resort’s new infinity-edge pool, the restaurant offers locally grown produce in dishes from traditional Hawai‘ian fare to the multiethnic cuisines inspired by Hawai‘i’s melting pot of cultures.
• The 202-room Aqua Aloha Surf has completed nearly US$10 million in renovations and upgrades, which includes designer interior finishes such as custom furniture with granite tops and amenities featuring flat-screen LCD televisions, free high-speed Internet access and the AquaKIT (microwave, mini-refrigerator and coffee maker). The large, open-air lobby has also been refreshed with paint, new carpet, furniture and artwork.
• The Hyatt Regency Waikiki Resort and Spa will extend its food and beverage operations to a location fronting the property on Waikiki Beach with the opening of its Hyatt on the Beach. The concession will offer beach-goers a variety of quick choices, including plate lunches, daily specials, sandwiches, breakfast, snacks, side dishes, shaved ice and beverages, including Starbucks coffee.
Transportation Tips
• Canadian travelers now have more opportunities to travel to Hawai‘i. Canada-based airline WestJet began direct flights from Victoria, British Columbia (YYJ), to Honolulu (HNL) in November and in December launched a twice-weekly flight between Vancouver (YVR) and Lïhu‘e, Kaua‘i (LIH).
• To make travel to Hawai‘i a simpler process for both national and international travelers, Mokulele Airlines is expanding its service with new partnerships. The Hawai‘i-based airline has signed ticketing agreements with United Airlines and Australian carrier Qantas and has an agreement with Alaska Airlines, allowing passengers a one-time check-in for themselves and their luggage when booking connecting flights between the two airlines.
• Enterprise Rent-A-Car is now equipped with hybrid rentals at its three O‘ahu locations, allowing customers to rent eco-friendly vehicles during their stays in Hawai‘i. Among the options customers can choose from are the Honda Civic, Honda Insight and Toyota Prius hybrids.
Fun Facts
• Hawai‘i, a chain of eight main islands, is the most isolated population center on Earth. Hawai‘i is 2,390 miles from California, 3,850 miles from Japan, 4,900 miles from China and 5,280 miles from the Philippines.
• Like pineapple? More than one-third of the world’s commercial supply of pineapples are grown in Hawai‘i.
• Hawai‘i has its own time zone, observed as the Hawai‘i-Aleutian Time Zone (HAST). Hawai‘ian time runs two hours behind Los Angeles and 19 hours behind Tokyo, and there is no daylight savings time.